Red Canary: detecting Entra Agent ID privilege escalation — credential injection into agent blueprints enables lateral movement across the entire tenant
Red Canary published a detection-engineering primer on 27 May 2026 on the AgentIdentityBlueprint.AddRemoveCreds.All role in Microsoft Entra's new Agent ID identity class — autonomous app identities that act in a tenant without human interaction (Red Canary, 2026-05-27). A misconfigured or adversary-controlled agent identity holding this role can add client secrets to any agent blueprint, then authenticate as any agent identity in the tenant — including high-privilege ones — after legitimate credential rotation. The full privilege-escalation chain: agent app → malicious role assignment (AgentIdentityBlueprint.AddRemoveCreds.All) → credential injection into target blueprint → authenticate as high-privilege agent → pivot to all downstream resources that blueprint can access. Relevant log sources: AuditLogs — look for "Update application – Certificates and secrets management" with a non-human InitiatedBy.app.servicePrincipalId; MicrosoftGraphActivityLogs — Graph API calls from agent service principals with unusual IP and UserAgent fields; AADServicePrincipalSignInLogs — filter on Agent.agentType: agenticAppInstance. Correlation: match SignInActivityId from Graph logs to UniqueTokenIdentifier in sign-in logs to reconstruct credential-add-to-authentication chains. MITRE ATT&CK: T1098 (Account Manipulation), T1078.004 (Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts). Swiss public-sector M365 deployments adopting AI agents via Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry should establish baselines for each agent identity's API scope and alert on credential additions to blueprints by any identity other than the provisioning pipeline. [SINGLE-SOURCE]
ATT&CK mapping
2 techniques mapped from the cited reporting · MITRE ATT&CK v19.1
Initial Access TA0001
T1078.004Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts
Valid accounts in cloud environments may allow adversaries to perform actions to achieve Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Cloud accounts are those created and configured by an organization for use by users, remote support, services, or for administration of resources within a cloud service provider or SaaS application. Cloud Accounts can exist solely in the cloud; alternatively, they may be hybrid-joined between on-premises systems and the cloud through syncing or federation with other identity sources such as Windows Active Directory.
Persistence TA0003
T1078.004Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts
Valid accounts in cloud environments may allow adversaries to perform actions to achieve Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Cloud accounts are those created and configured by an organization for use by users, remote support, services, or for administration of resources within a cloud service provider or SaaS application. Cloud Accounts can exist solely in the cloud; alternatively, they may be hybrid-joined between on-premises systems and the cloud through syncing or federation with other identity sources such as Windows Active Directory.
T1098Account Manipulation
Adversaries may manipulate accounts to maintain and/or elevate access to victim systems. Account manipulation may consist of any action that preserves or modifies adversary access to a compromised account, such as modifying credentials or permission groups. These actions could also include account activity designed to subvert security policies, such as performing iterative password updates to bypass password duration policies and preserve the life of compromised credentials.
Privilege Escalation TA0004
T1078.004Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts
Valid accounts in cloud environments may allow adversaries to perform actions to achieve Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Cloud accounts are those created and configured by an organization for use by users, remote support, services, or for administration of resources within a cloud service provider or SaaS application. Cloud Accounts can exist solely in the cloud; alternatively, they may be hybrid-joined between on-premises systems and the cloud through syncing or federation with other identity sources such as Windows Active Directory.
T1098Account Manipulation
Adversaries may manipulate accounts to maintain and/or elevate access to victim systems. Account manipulation may consist of any action that preserves or modifies adversary access to a compromised account, such as modifying credentials or permission groups. These actions could also include account activity designed to subvert security policies, such as performing iterative password updates to bypass password duration policies and preserve the life of compromised credentials.
Stealth TA0005
T1078.004Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts
Valid accounts in cloud environments may allow adversaries to perform actions to achieve Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Cloud accounts are those created and configured by an organization for use by users, remote support, services, or for administration of resources within a cloud service provider or SaaS application. Cloud Accounts can exist solely in the cloud; alternatively, they may be hybrid-joined between on-premises systems and the cloud through syncing or federation with other identity sources such as Windows Active Directory.
Sources
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